‘Better Call Saul’ Will Not Feature Walter White or Jesse Pinkman Yet

Better Call Saul will not feature Walter White or Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad yet, at least not during its first season on AMC, according to Rolling Stone.com and other sources. But, both of these two characters will reportedly be on this prequel to Breaking Bad at some point in the future.

Better Call Saul is set six years before everything that happens in the AMC series, Breaking Bad, which introduced the character of the dirty lawyer, Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, to the world. Saul Goodman is not above engaging in whatever it takes to help out his clients, provided there is a tidy profit to be made in the process.

The news that Walter White and Jesse Pinkman would not appear during the first season of Better Call Saul was first announced by the show’s co-creators, Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan, at the Television Critics Association panel in Pasadena, California. However, as Gould put it, in regards to the prequel, “everything else is on the table.”

One character, hitman Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) from Breaking Bad, will definitely be appearing during the first season of Better Call Saul, as a series regular. However, neither Gould nor Gilligan want to seem as if they are forcing characters from Breaking Bad into the preqel.

Vince Gilligan has stated that, even though he wants everything about the show to be “proper and organic,” he would like to see everyone from the cast of Breaking Bad on Better Call Saul “eventually.” He just does not want their introductions into the prequel seem to be “a stunt.”

Also, as Vince Gilligan noted, it would be sort of odd to have Aaron Paul play a younger version of himself, one who would have to probably be in junior high school. If Gilligan and Gould continue to have this philosophy, fans of Breaking Bad might not get to see Jesse Pinkman or Walter White on the series for a couple of years or longer.

Better Call Saul will visually look different from Breaking Bad, according to Gilligan. While Breaking Bad was shot primarily with a handheld camera, Gilligan said that the camera for Better Call Saul “always tends to be static and locked down.” Execs at AMC have liked what they have so far seen, and have renewed the series for a second season before it has even premiered.

Gould and Gilligan might even have time pass differently in Better Call Saul than in Breaking Bad. According to Gilligan, there might even be scenes in Better Call Saul that occur after everything that happens in Breaking Bad.

Gilligan said that they felt that, with the story of Walter White, who was dying of cancer, Breaking Bad “had to be very accelerated storytelling.” However, he said that is not the case with the story of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman told in Better Call Saul.

Gilligan said that there would be a change that viewers see taking place, but it would not be quite as extreme as the one that transformed Walter White from being a mild-mannered high school Chemistry teacher into a ruthless meth kingpin. Saul starts out as a lawyer who “wants to be good,” but as the first season unfolds, he will begin to ask himself why he wants to be good, and does he want to be good for others, or for himself.

Though Better Call Saul will not have either Walter White or Jesse Pinkman appear on it during the show’s first season, they will eventually show up sometime after that, according to the co-creators of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Gould and Gilligan. The rest of the cast of Better Call Saul includes Michael McKeon, as Saul/Jimmy’s brother, Chuck; Michael Mando, as Nacho Verga; Rhea Seehorn, as Kim Wexler; and, Patrick Fabian playing Howard Hamlin. The season premiere will be shown over two nights, on Sunday February 8 at 10:00 p.m. ET and the same time on Monday, February 10. After that, it will air on Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET.

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